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Destroy All Humans! Wiki:Quality Standards of Writing
The goal of the Destroy All Humans! Wiki is to provide a well-written and comphrehensible account of the Destroy All Humans! franchise. This need for quality goes beyond merely using proper grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation: the content itself also has to be good. For the most part, this is accomplished, however there are a few issues that frequently come up with the writing. This is a guide to help users try to avoid these pitfalls. Examples of poor quality writing This is a short, laconic summary of what users should avoid doing while they're writing. *'Unnecessary or complex summaries '- "Story" sections on game pages should only cover the most important part of the plot: nitty-gritty details should be saved for characters, enemy and area articles, etc. *'Simplistic summaries '- While we don't encourage complex summaries, don't lazily write details to try fit the radar. *'Pseudo-walkthroughs' - If a game does not have a very hefty plot, its "Story" section should be short: a level-by-level overview is unnecessary filler. *'Padding' - Short articles and short sections aren't bad if there's not much to write about: it's better to keep it short and relevant, not long, nonsensical, and complicated. *'Everything but the kitchen sink' - Don't fill articles with descriptions of things that are only superficially similar to what the page is about: it's just more padding. *'Captain Obvious' - Don't bother explaining something if the name itself already says exactly what it is. *'Abusing the thesaurus/Flowery writing' - Overly fancy writing looks forced and is distracting to the reader: repetition is bad, but abusing the thesaurus and using too many adjectives is just as undesirable. *'Narmy writing' - Grandiose, over-the-top dramatic prose does not make games sound more epic and interesting, it just makes the articles narmy: keep it level-headed when writing summaries. *'Reading between the lines' - The articles are for facts, not speculation: keep original interpretations and personal biases out of the writing. *'Mixing gameplay and story elements together' - Don't treat the mechanics of gameplay as if they were part of a flowing narrative: gameplay is gameplay, and trying to treat it like story is unnatural and lowers the quality of the article. *'Blowing things out of proportion' - There may be a few interesting instances in which Destroy All Humans! gets serious, but don't fixate on them: blowing stuff out of proportion just skews our coverage and lowers the wiki's credibility. *Remember to refer to the player or a reader with gender-neutral pronouns rather than feminine or masculine. Things to Avoid 'Summaries that aren't (complex summaries)' Having the maximum amount of relevant information is good. However, someimes user try to cram every detail into a plot summary. Ideally, a summary should only explain the most important parts (the "meat") of the plot - For example, how the conflict starts, what the main characters do to try stop the conflict, and major events that happen within the space of the storyline's timeline. There is no need to exhaust every single detail of the storyline! Most plotline events can be described in simple one-line sentences. As an example, the details of a mission in the series does not need to explain how "Crypto sneakily snatches the body of an unsuspecting female hippie from the nearby Landing Zone, who is conversing with two fellow male hippies, and sets off to scan the minds of citizens to find The Freak". Instead, all that needs to be said is "Crypto takes disguise as a nearby female hippie and sets off to find The Freak". The important parts of the storyline here are disguising as the hippie and The Freak, who deserve a mention. For an example of including too many details about important events, the story section of Destination Earth can be described as "Crypto lands on Turnipseed Farm to try find the dominant species on Earth. He briefly analyses the cows on the farm and then kills them. He then extracts the brain off a human farmer, whose wife then alerts police attention. He then destroys the military and then destroys the farm before escaping". This touches on all the major plot points without getting too in-depth, although it is best left to the main storyline details; by comparison, the next paragraph is bogged down by details about the battles, unnecessary frilly descriptions, and details about the enemies themselves; "Crypto mutilates and murders the cattle on the farm using his Psychokinesis abilities, only to alert an unsuspecting armed farmer. Although the farmer's strong shotgun dents a bullet in the little grey alien, he overcomes the farmer and extracts his brain out of his body. His shocked wife reports the incident to the police, who are armed with weaker pistols, whom Crypto destroys in seconds. After a lengthy battle with the military, Crypto burns the farm to the ground and retreats to the mothership. A more simplified description like this best belongs on the mission's article page rather than on a storyline page. In addition, avoid simplistic writing - While we do not encourage being too descriptive, we also don't encourage extremely informed articles with barely any info. Try to avoid using slang terms while writing. 'Pseudo-Walkthroughs' Remember that story sections are not walkthroughs. While walkthroughs are well-meaning, you should try to avoid cramming one into a short article. "A disguised Crypto discovers that Verity had given her boss a lap dance at work by scanning her mind. He then proceeds to send her to a hippie gathering, where Verity makes a fool of herself dancing with the other hippies" is a plot. One that has to do with every miniscule detail such as powerups or weapons Crypto uses is not. Try to avoid writing the entire plot of a character in their role section. If you are doing the plotline of an article, try to keep it focused on the character and not someone else. For example, "Natalya first meets Crypto after Blisk Spores are released in an art exhibit in Albion, where she aids him in killing off the mutated humans". This focuses on the introduction of Natalya Ivanova and is appropriate for her section. "''Crypto first meets Natalya after Blisk Spores are released in an art exhibit in Albion" ''is a subtle difference, but it changes the perspective to Crypto, and makes it seem as if Crypto is the main focus here.